COMMERCE AND COLONISATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 19, 3 June 1871, Page 15

COMMERCE AND COLONISATION.

We publish below a report of the speech made by his Honor Mr Justice Chapman at the public dinner given to the captain and officers of the Nevada at the Dunedin Club, on Friday evening last:— Mr Chairman and Gentlemen—The toast which the committee have placed in my hands is one of very large dimensions, but I am very sure that you will drink it with enthusiasm. It is no less than " The Commerce of the United States of America." When we speak of the vast commerce of that great country, it is impossible to exclude from our thoughts the commerce of the countries with which American commerce is carried on, and especially that of Great Britain and of the Australian colonies and New Zealand. Owing to the vast extension of steam navigation within the last few years, the extension of railways—and especially of that great railway which crosses the American continent—and of the electric telegraph, such has been the remarkable development of commercial intercourse that I cannot ask you to wish well to the commerce of America without virtually including the commerce of the whole civilised world. Many of you, gentlemen, may have a tolerably clear conception of the almost gigantic proportions of American commerce; but it is only by casting our recollections back for half a century, and comparing the state of things then with the state of things now, that we can gain a clear conception of the rapid growth of commerce, and form anything like a just conception of the future. Let me here remind you that American commerce is the offspring of American colonisation, and this is not confined to the introduction of people from Europe to the New World. Although America has been peopled in a great measure by Europeans and their descendants, yet America herself is really one of ihe greatest colonising countries in the world. Not that she plants distant colonies as England does, but possessing as she does vast tracts of fertile land, only thinly occupied, she is continually sending forth swarms from the eastern portion of her territory to the Far West, as it is called. The Far West, did I say ? To us gentlemen, it is the Near West, rendered nearer than it has hitherto been by the successful voyage of the steamer which we are now celebrating, and which has enabled Western America and the colony of New Zealand —as h.Bs been well said—to shake hands with each other. It is noarly half a century since I first set foot on the shores of America. I paid my first visit there when a very young man in 1823. At that time, or perhaps a year before, when the census was taken, the population of the city of New York, including Brooklyn and Jersey City, was 180,000. That, gentleman, is about the population of Melbourne at the present time. What is now the population of the city of New York? Not less than a million and a quarter, and perhaps even more ; and this is the result of the active state of colonisation of late years, of the increase of production and wealth in America, and the extension of commerce. The growth of steam navigation can scarcely be adequately appreciated without looking back. I made

my first tour through Upper Canada in the autumn of 1824. I crossed Lake Ontario in a small steamboat called the Queenstown. There was one other boat on the lake, the Frontignac, but she was laid up—old and half rotten. On the American side there had been one steamer, but at that time she was laid up in Sackett's harbor for want of traffic. There was then no steamer on Lake Erie, and only one on Lake Champlain. Now, in spite of railway accommodation in all directions, there are hundreds of steamers, British and American, on every one of the great lakes. There were at that time no seagoing steamers. I remember crossing the Atlantic in one of the " liners," as they are called, the Pacific, commanded by Solomon Maxwell, a very excellent man. I think the ship was of about 500 tons burthen, and at that time we considered a ship of 600 or 700 tons as gigaatic. Compare these with the splendid steamers, measuring their tonnage by thousands, of the present day, and then remember that all this is the result of the extension of colonisation and commerce. But, gentlemen, there are other considerations which ought to make us proud of being the progenitors of that great country. The population of the TTnited States is, if I recollect right, about forty millions of people, speaking the English language, governed mainly by English law, enjoying a liberal constitution, framed avowedly on that of England—although the head of the Executive in one country is a Queen, and in the other a President—and pervaded throughout all classes by what I venture to call English modes of thought. Now I, for one, am proud of being an Englishman—proud of the institutions and history of my own country; but I feel that pride greatly increased, and I am sure you will share these feelings, when I look to that great country which is the offspring of our country and her free institutions. Do not tell me of differences endangering the peace of these two great English nations—tell me not of Alabama claims and other " American difficulties." Believe me, they are mere seven days' wonders, which the good sense and moderation of the statesmen of both nations will brush from their path. Reminding you, then, that America now has about 40 millions of people, Jet me carry your thoughts as far forward as I have already cast them backwards, Owiag to the vast extent of fertile land in proportion to the people, the period of doubling the population has hitherto been 25 years. Land being still abundant, and the means of employing capital and labor still improving, I see no reason to anticipate that the period of doubling will decrease for two or three periods to come. If this be so in SO years, or at all events in 60 years, the population of North America will then be about 160 millions. That of Great Britain will then be probably 40 or 50 millions, and that of Australia 8 or 10 millions, for our period of doubling is at present shorter. Adding some other countries where Englishmen are spreading, in 60 years about one-fifth of the inhabitants of the globe will be people speaking the English language, governed by English laws and political institutions, revering trial by jury and the writs of habeas corpus, and animated generally by a community of sentiment. Is not this something for Englishmen and Americans to look forward to with pride? and are such paltry little temporary affairs as the Alabama claims and other little differences to be permitted to intrude, and create jealousies which ought never to be for one moment suffered to exist ? In framing this toast I think it not unlikely that the Committee had chiefly in view the interchange of commodities; but the word commerce is quite large enough to include much more than this. There is a commerce of the intellect—a commerce of everything that is good and great in both countries—that has wonderfully grown within the last half century, to the great benefit of both Europe and America ; and this is greatly aided and accelerated by steam navigation, railroads, and other means of communication. Fifty years since the only American writer of European reputation of whom the Americans were wont to boast, and justly so too, was Washington Irving. What is the oase now ? There is no branch of science, no new

development of arts, no region of philosophy, in which Americans do not distinguish themselves. It is only within the 19th century that the history, progress, and structure of our language has been philosophically investigated. In England we have some great names in this department of knowledge. Some eminent French philologists, many Germans, and a few learned Danes have contributed their share to the general stock of knowledge. Now, one of our best and most learned works on the history and developement of our language is the work of a learned American, Mr G. P. Marsh. In Philosophical History, ancient and modern, their name is legion. On all the subjects to which I have alluded, the learned men of the United States have placed them side by side with the learned of Europe, and this commerce of the intellect is as fair a guarantee of peace as is the commerce of commodities. There is one feature in America, which I, for one do not liks ; but I am not going to expatiate on a disputed and disputable question—=-1 mean their protective system. With that system generally we have properly nothing to do. We have scarcely hore a fair title to criticise a matter of internal policy. Some apology of at least a colorable character might he framed politically—though T think not economically—for the American tariff; but there is one part of it in which the producers of this country have a deep interest: I mean the duty on our raw produce. America is now a great manufacturing nation. All economists agree, and a great many protectionists concur in this, that to a manufacturing nation all taxes on raw produce are unwise. I cannot help expressing a hope that American statesmen and American legislators will soon see this very clearly. I have observed of late a considerable change of opinion in America in relation to the principles of protection and the tariff. There is a strong party in nearly all parts of America, more or less in favor of free trade. I think that the duties on raw materials of manufacture are the foes to be attacked, relaxed, and finally—l do sincerely hope for our sakes, and for the sake of the people of America—abolished. Then the United States of America and these colonies w:ll really and cordially shake hands. Apologising for the length of time I have occupied, T now move, " The Commerce of the United States of America," coupled with the name of Mr Driver.